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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Books Learn to Write, the Adderall Way

Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 12:35 PM

A few months ago, Sean Nelson reviewed Stephen Elliott's new memoir, The Adderall Diaries:

The mischief of the title is that it leads you to believe the book is conceived as a memoir in the drug-confessional tradition, when in fact it's something less common, more formally interesting, and possibly more involving, or at least more stimulating: a memoir procedural. Elliott's journey through his life never reads like confession, and the drugs, though ubiquitous, are incidental. There's none of the heroic, I-can't-believe-I-smoked-the-whole-rock pridefulness you often find none-too-thinly veiled within dissolute user memoirs.

Tomorrow night at 7 pm, Elliott will be teaching a class in memoir at 826 Seattle in Greenwood:

You’ll get ideas on writing memoir and understand some of the problems the memoir writer may encounter. In the talk we’ll discuss dealing with family members and friends who may not want to be written about and we’ll also go through some writing tips for accessing memories and experiences.

If you're interested in writing a memoir, you should at least learn from people who write good memoirs, because it's harder than it looks. Elliott has a lot to teach you about telling the truth, artfully. You can buy tickets here. Admission is $25 and includes a copy of The Adderall Diaries. And I don't have to explain to you how important 826 Seattle is, do I? Because it's pretty important.